Oh, I didn’t mean to disparage the pseudosciences. I think they can be useful. It’s sort of like there’s no shame in being a garbage collector. I mean, somebody has to pick up the trash. That’s not to disparage anyone. Trash collection is not an essential element of society, but it is not a thoroughly useless one.
I’m just saying that disciplines like biology could enhance their own standing and become thoroughly legitimate science by quantifying their theories. I really haven’t kept up much with biology, but the classic scientific method I learned requires a quantification of your work.
Point well made. I re-read my post and it did seem to say that math is a science, I didn’t mean to imply that. As you point out, science is based on the scientific method, which requires controlled experiments for verification. Math doesn’t require experiments at all.
As to which direction physics research should take, we leave that to the philosophers. I’m also troubled by the tendency to follow the math without regard to the modeled system.
I do a lot of modeling and simulation work on the computer, and the first rule is that when the model and the modeled system disagree the model is wrong. If you can’t compare the model with the system you’re modeling then you can’t validate the model, which makes the predictions based on that model suspect. This conflict between the accepted models and the material world has happened a few times in physics in the last century, maybe we’re due for another bombshell.
Last night I was at a meeting for eighth grade parents. We were told that next year the high school will begin teaching physics in the 9th grade, followed by chemistry, followed by biology. They feel that each lays a more logical foundation for the one that follows. Obviously the 9th grade version of physics wil be a little more simple than the upper-class version. I’m also interested in seeing how the Kunilou twin and their older sister will interact with each taking a different physics course at the same time.
As for the remark (I apologize – was it Pundit Lisa?) that we don’t need physics in high school because we learn it in real life – can’t we make that same argument about everything? I learned to read, to count, to sing, to draw, and many other things before I entered school, so why should I have been forced to take any of it.
And, Libertarian, if someone has to pickup the garbage, doesn’t that make garbage collection essential?
(Ahem, this is an old one, and it has been a while since I last saw it, so I might have some of the steps wrong…)
God is applied Religion,
Religion is applied Politics,
Politics is applied Sociology,
Sociology is applied Psychiatry,
Psychiatry is applied Psychology,
Psychology is applied Biology,
Biology is applied Chemistry,
Chemistry is applied Physics,
Physics is applied Mathmatics,
Mathmatics is applied Philosophy,
Philosophy is applied bullshit.
Enjoy!
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
I’m not a neurologist nor do I really follow the developments in that field at more that a cursory level. But I’ve been under the impression that the brain pretty much is though to be a predictable system, just one that’s so complex we cannot currently dream of actually doing so.
There’s a guy, Roger Penrose (I think?), who has a theory that quantum uncertainty plays a role in cogitation, but the last I was aware, he hadn’t come up with any plausible explanation for how such an effect would take place, nor done any meaningful research to substantiate his claim. My impression is that almost everybody in neurology thinks that nothing below the atomic level is playing much of a role in the brain’s operation - it’s all just electric impulses and chemical reactions and such, albeit on a very complex scale.
Since we do seem to be able to affect the initiation of mental action via chemical and physical mechanisms, I’m curious on what you base your opinion above. Do you know of any research pointing to other contributing factors?
We may not really know the answer to this question today, but my money is firmly betting that in principle, neurology can explain why you chose to act that way at that particular moment, if it knows the complete state of your brain beforehand. It’s beyond our current abilities, but that’s not the same as saying it’s impossible in theory. I really think it does reduce to physics at some level, just that we’re not smart enough to do it.